Posts written in May 2015

The Brandz Top 100 for 2015 has seen impressive debuts and inexorable rises for a plethora of Chinese companies. Alibaba surged into the top 20 on its debut. The company become eligible following Alibaba’s debut on the New York stock exchange in 2014 with a record $25bn IPO and has beaten Amazon into second place of the retail market, ranked 14th overall and top of the retail category. The next most successful debut was Huawei. Demonstrating China’s growing economic prowess and influence in the world, other firms made the top… Read more

Food security has been a significant driver behind a number of acquisitions in recent years. As industrialization and population growth have occurred, arable land and water sources have been affected, and this presents problems for the future of the country’s food security. What’s more, the Chinese population is consuming more food per capita than it has in the past, further squeezing the country’s resources. China’s arable land has decreased According to the World Bank, China feeds nearly 20% of the world’s population with less than 10% of the world’s arable… Read more

On Tuesday 26th May, Ryanair Holdings (Ryanair), a low-fares scheduled passenger airline serving 1,600 short-haul, point-to-point routes across Europe; announced a 66% year on year increase in net profit. The company’s growth is no surprise to Marketline- the evolution of Ryanair’s business strategy was extensively examined in a March 2015 Case Study, Cheap but no longer nasty: evolution at Ryanair, which predicted Ryanair shareholders were set to benefit from a sustained period of strong cash generation, as the ‘Always Getting Better’ program delivered continued growth in passenger volumes. The program,… Read more

On Tuesday, May 19, 2015, it was announced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that the UK had fallen into deflation for the first time since 1960. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell by 0.1% in the year to April 2015, compared to no change (0.0%) in the year to March 2015. According to the ONS, this is the first time the CPI has recorded a decline over a year since official records began in 1996, and is the first instance of deflation when using comparative data since 1960…. Read more

UK Insurers are now accepting dashboard cameras as supporting evidence in cases where the parties involved do not agree on the cause of a road traffic incident and sales of the devices have increased almost tenfold in the last 12 months. Dashboard cameras are commonplace in countries where driving conditions can at times be particularly treacherous such as Russia and Taiwan. Dashboard cameras are forward-facing cameras mounted on a dashboard or windscreen. They are powered through a car’s cigarette lighter or in more modern cars, through a USB port. They… Read more

On Thursday the 7th of May the UK went to the polls to choose their next government. The previous government had been a compromise between two parties, sharing their seats in order to form a workable coalition. For months and years before last week’s election, the pollsters had been predicting a similar result, a hung parliament, where no one party would have overall control and all the signs were suggesting that there would have to be another coalition and no one knew for sure which parties that might contain and… Read more

General Mills has successfully entered the tricky gluten-free food market. It can be difficult for a major existing corporation to successfully enter the gluten-free food market. Such companies may find it difficult to adhere to strict regulations that gluten-free foods must adhere to, as most have produced, and will continue to produce, gluten-containing foods in their manufacturing facilities. What’s more, developing gluten-free foods is expensive and time-consuming. Companies must often undergo trial-and-error to retain a food’s flavor, texture, and consistency without including gluten, which is often used to give structure… Read more